Internet, Science & Tech

AUGUST 6, 2014

AI, Robotics, and the Future of JobsBY AARON SMITH (HTTP://WWW.PEWRESEARCH.ORG/STAFF/AARON-SMITH/) AND JANNA ANDERSON(HTTP://WWW.PEWINTERNET.ORG/AUTHOR/JANDERSON/)

Key Findings

The vast majority of respondents to the 2014 Future of the Internet canvassing anticipate that robotics andartificial intelligence will permeate wide segments of daily life by 2025, with huge implications for a range ofindustries such as health care, transport and logistics, customer service, and home maintenance. But even asthey are largely consistent in their predictions for the evolution of technology itself, they are deeply divided onhow advances in AI and robotics will impact the economic and employment picture over the next decade.

We call this a canvassing because it is not a representative, randomized survey. Its findings emerge from an“opt in” invitation to experts who have been identified by researching those who are widely quoted astechnology builders and analysts and those who have made insightful predictions to our previous queries aboutthe future of the Internet. (For more details, please see the section “About this Report and Survey.”)

Key themes: reasons to be hopeful

1. Advances in technology may displace certain types of work, but historically they have been a netcreator of jobs.

2. We will adapt to these changes by inventing entirely new types of work, and by taking advantage ofuniquely human capabilities.

3. Technology will free us from day-to-day drudgery, and allow us to define our relationship with“work” in a more positive and socially beneficial way.

4. Ultimately, we as a society control our own destiny through the choices we make.

Key themes: reasons to be concerned

1. Impacts from automation have thus far impacted mostly blue-collar employment; the coming waveof innovation threatens to upend white-collar work as well.

2. Certain highly-skilled workers will succeed wildly in this new environment—but far more may bedisplaced into lower paying service industry jobs at best, or permanent unemployment at worst.

3. Our educational system is not adequately preparing us for work of the future, and our political andeconomic institutions are poorly equipped to handle these hard choices.

Some 1,896 experts responded to the following question:

The economic impact of robotic advances and AI—Self-driving cars, intelligent digital agents that canact for you, and robots are advancing rapidly. Will networked, automated, artificial intelligence (AI)applications and robotic devices have displaced more jobs than they have created by 2025?

Half of these experts (48%) envision a future in which robots and digital agents have displaced significantnumbers of both blue- and white-collar workers—with many expressing concern that this will lead to vastincreases in income inequality, masses of people who are effectively unemployable, and breakdowns in thesocial order.

The other half of the experts who responded to this survey (52%) expect that technology will not displace morejobs than it creates by 2025. To be sure, this group anticipates that many jobs currently performed by humanswill be substantially taken over by robots or digital agents by 2025. But they have faith that human ingenuitywill create new jobs, industries, and ways to make a living, just as it has been doing since the dawn of theIndustrial Revolution.

These two groups also share certain hopes and concerns about the impact of technology on employment. Forinstance, many are concerned that our existing social structures—and especially our educational institutions—are not adequately preparing people for the skills that will be needed in the job market of the future.Conversely, others have hope that the coming changes will be an opportunity to reassess our society’srelationship to employment itself—by returning to a focus on small-scale or artisanal modes of production, orby giving people more time to spend on leisure, self-improvement, or time with loved ones.

A number of themes ran through the responses to this question: those that are unique to either group, andthose that were mentioned by members of both groups.

The view from those who expect AI and robotics to have a positive or neutral impact on jobs by 2025

JP Rangaswami, chief scientist for Salesforce.com, offered a number of reasons for his belief that automationwill not be a net displacer of jobs in the next decade: “The effects will be different in different economies (whichthemselves may look different from today’s political boundaries). Driven by revolutions in education and intechnology, the very nature of work will have changed radically—but only in economies that have chosen toinvest in education, technology, and related infrastructure. Some classes of jobs will be handed over to the‘immigrants’ of AI and Robotics, but more will have been generated in creative and curating activities asdemand for their services grows exponentially while barriers to entry continue to fall. For many classes of jobs,robots will continue to be poor labor substitutes.”

Rangaswami’s prediction incorporates a number of arguments made by those in this canvassing who took hisside of this question.

Argument #1: Throughout history, technology has been a job creator—not a job destroyer

Vint Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google, said, "Historically, technology has createdmore jobs than it destroys and there is no reason to think otherwise in this case.(https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CHistorically%2C%20technology%20has%20created%20more%20jobs%20than%20it%20destroys%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94%40vgcerf)Someone has to make and service all these advanced devices.”

Jonathan Grudin, principal researcher for Microsoft, concurred: “Technology will continue to disrupt jobs, butmore jobs seem likely to be created. When the world population was a few hundred million people there werehundreds of millions of jobs. Although there have always been unemployed people, when we reached a fewbillion people there were billions of jobs. There is no shortage of things that need to be done and that will notchange.”

Michael Kende, the economist for a major Internet-oriented nonprofit organization, wrote, “In general, everywave of automation and computerization has increased productivity without depressing employment, and thereis no reason to think the same will not be true this time. (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CEvery%20wave%20of%20automation%20and%20computerization%20has%20increased%20productivity%20w%2Fo%20depressing%20employment%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94%40MichaelKende)In particular, the new wave is likely to increase our personal or professional productivity (e.g. self-driving car)but not necessarily directly displace a job (e.g. chauffeur). While robots may displace some manual jobs, theimpact should not be different than previous waves of automation in factories and elsewhere. On the otherhand, someone will have to code and build the new tools, which will also likely lead to a new wave ofinnovations and jobs.” (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=A%20new%20wave%20of%20innovations%20and%20jobs%20will%20be%20created%20from%20the%20need%20to%20code%2Fbuild%20new%20high%20tech%20tools%E2%80%94%40MichaelKende)

Fred Baker, Internet pioneer, longtime leader in the IETF and Cisco Systems Fellow, responded, “Myobservation of advances in automation has been that they change jobs, but they don’t reduce them. A car thatcan guide itself on a striped street has more difficulty with an unstriped street, for example, and any automatedsystem can handle events that it is designed for, but not events (such as a child chasing a ball into a street) forwhich it is not designed. Yes, I expect a lot of change. I don't think the human race can retire en masse by2025.” (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CI%20don%27t%20think%20the%20human%20race%20can%20retire%20en%20masse%20by%202025.%E2%80%9D%20-%20Fred%20Baker)

Argument #2: Advances in technology create new jobs and industries even as they displace some ofthe older ones

Ben Shneiderman, professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, wrote, “Robots and AI makecompelling stories for journalists, but they are a false vision of the major economic changes. Journalists losttheir jobs because of changes to advertising, professors are threatened by MOOCs, and store salespeople arelosing jobs to Internet sales people. Improved user interfaces, electronic delivery (videos, music, etc.), and moreself-reliant customers reduce job needs. At the same time someone is building new websites, managingcorporate social media plans, creating new products, etc. Improved user interfaces, novel services, and freshideas will create more jobs.” (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CImproved%20user%20interfaces%2C%20novel%20services%2C%20and%20fresh%20ideas%20will%20create%20more%20jobs.%E2%80%9D-%40benbendc)

(http://www.pewinternet.org/?attachment_id=11733)

Amy Webb, CEO of strategy firm Webbmedia Group, wrote, “There is a general concern that the robots aretaking over. I disagree that our emerging technologies will permanently displace most of the workforce, thoughI’d argue that jobs will shift into other sectors. Now more than ever, an army of talented coders is needed tohelp our technology advance. But we will still need folks to do packaging, assembly, sales, and outreach. Thecollar of the future is a hoodie.”

John Markoff, senior writer for the Science section of the New York Times, responded, “You didn’t allow theanswer that I feel strongly is accurate—too hard to predict. There will be a vast displacement of labor over thenext decade. That is true. But, if we had gone back 15 years who would have thought that ‘search engineoptimization’ would be a significant job category?” (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=.%40markoff%20wonders%2C%20who%20would%E2%80%99ve%20thought%20SEO%20would%20be%20a%20significant%20job%20category%2015%20years%20ago%3F)

Marjory Blumenthal, a science and technology policy analyst, wrote, “In a given context, automated deviceslike robots may displace more than they create. But they also generate new categories of work, giving rise tosecond- and third-order effects. Also, there is likely to be more human-robot collaboration—a change in thekind of work opportunities available. (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=By%202025%2C%20%E2%80%9Cthere%20is%20likely%20to%20be%20more%20human-robot%20collaboration%2C%E2%80%9D%20says%20%40MarjorySB) The wider impacts are the hardest topredict; they may not be strictly attributable to the uses of automation but they are related…what the middle ofthe 20th century shows us is how dramatic major economic changes are—like the 1970s OPEC-driven increasesof the price of oil—and how those changes can dwarf the effects of technology.”

Argument #3: There are certain jobs that only humans have the capacity to do

A number of respondents argued that many jobs require uniquely human characteristics such as empathy,creativity, judgment, or critical thinking—and that jobs of this nature will never succumb to widespreadautomation.

David Hughes, a retired U.S. Army Colonel who, from 1972, was a pioneer in individual to/from digitaltelecommunications, responded, “For all the automation and AI, I think the 'human hand' will have to beinvolved on a large scale. (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CFor%20all%20the%20automation%20and%20AI%2C%20the%20%E2%80%98human%20hand%E2%80%99%20will%20have%20to%20be%20involved%20on%20a%20large%20scale%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94David%20Hughes)Just as aircraft have to have pilots and copilots, I don’t think all ‘self-driving’ cars will be totally unmanned. Thehuman’s ability to detect unexpected circumstances, and take action overriding automatic driving will beneeded as long and individually owned ‘cars’ are on the road.”

Pamela Rutledge, PhD and director of the Media Psychology Research Center, responded, “There will be manythings that machines can’t do, such as services that require thinking, creativity, synthesizing, problem-solving,and innovating…Advances in AI and robotics allow people to cognitively offload repetitive tasks and invest theirattention and energy in things where humans can make a difference. We already have cars that talk to us, aphone we can talk to, robots that lift the elderly out of bed, and apps that remind us to call Mom. An app candial Mom's number and even send flowers, but an app can't do that most human of all things: emotionallyconnect with her.” (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CAn%20app%20can%20dial%20Mom%E2%80%99s%20number%20and%20even%20send%20flowers%E2%80%9D%20but%20it%20can%E2%80%99t%20emotionally%20connect%20with%20her%E2%80%94%40mediapsychology)

Michael Glassman, associate professor at the Ohio State University, wrote, “I think AI will do a few morethings, but people are going to be surprised how limited it is. There will be greater differentiation between whatAI does and what humans do, but also much more realization that AI will not be able to engage the critical tasksthat humans do.”

Argument #4: The technology will not advance enough in the next decade to substantially impact thejob market

Another group of experts feels that the impact on employment is likely to be minimal for the simple reason that10 years is too short a timeframe for automation to move substantially beyond the factory floor. David Clark, asenior research scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, noted, “The larger

trend to consider is the penetration of automation into service jobs. This trend will require new skills for theservice industry, which may challenge some of the lower-tier workers, but in 12 years I do not thinkautonomous devices will be truly autonomous. I think they will allow us to deliver a higher level of service withthe same level of human involvement.”

Jari Arkko, Internet expert for Ericsson and chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force, wrote, “There is nodoubt that these technologies affect the types of jobs that need to be done. But there are only 12 years to 2025,some of these technologies will take a long time to deploy in significant scale… (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=Some%20of%20these%20technologies%20will%20take%20a%20long%20time%20to%20deploy%20in%20significant%20scale%E2%80%A6)We’ve been living a relatively slow but certain progress in these fields from the 1960s.”

Christopher Wilkinson, a retired European Union official, board member for EURid.eu, and Internet Societyleader said, “The vast majority of the population will be untouched by these technologies for the foreseeablefuture. AI and robotics will be a niche, with a few leading applications such as banking, retailing, and transport.The risks of error and the imputation of liability remain major constraints to the application of thesetechnologies to the ordinary landscape.”

Argument #5: Our social, legal, and regulatory structures will minimize the impact on employment

A final group suspects that economic, political, and social concerns will prevent the widespread displacement ofjobs. Glenn Edens, a director of research in networking, security, and distributed systems within the ComputerScience Laboratory at PARC, a Xerox Company, wrote, “There are significant technical and policy issues yet toresolve, however there is a relentless march on the part of commercial interests (businesses) to increaseproductivity so if the technical advances are reliable and have a positive ROI then there is a risk that workerswill be displaced. Ultimately we need a broad and large base of employed population, otherwise there will be noone to pay for all of this new world.”

Andrew Rens, chief council at the Shuttleworth Foundation, wrote, “A fundamental insight of economics isthat an entrepreneur will only supply goods or services if there is a demand, and those who demand the goodcan pay. Therefore any country that wants a competitive economy will ensure that most of its citizens areemployed so that in turn they can pay for goods and services. If a country doesn’t ensure employment drivendemand it will become increasingly less competitive.”

(http://www.pewinternet.org/?attachment_id=11729)

Geoff Livingston, author and president of Tenacity5 Media, wrote, “I see the movement towards AI androbotics as evolutionary, in large part because it is such a sociological leap. The technology may be ready, butwe are not—at least, not yet.” (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=.%40geoffliving%20on%20the%20impact%20of%20AI%2FRobotics%3A%20%E2%80%9CThe%20technology%20may%20be%20ready%2C%20but%20we%20are%20not%E2%80%94at%20least%2C%20not%20yet.%E2%80%9D)

The view from those who expect AI and robotics to displace more jobs than they create by 2025

An equally large group of experts takes a diametrically opposed view of technology’s impact on employment. Intheir reading of history, job displacement as a result of technological advancement is clearly in evidence today,and can only be expected to get worse as automation comes to the white-collar world.

Argument #1: Displacement of workers from automation is already happening—and about to getmuch worse

(http://www.pewinternet.org/?attachment_id=11731)

Jerry Michalski, founder of REX, the Relationship Economy eXpedition, sees the logic of the slow andunrelenting movement in the direction of more automation: “Automation is Voldemort: the terrifying forcenobody is willing to name. (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CAutomation%20is%20Voldemort%3A%20the%20terrifying%20force%20nobody%20is%20willing%20to%20name%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94%40jerrymichalski)Oh sure, we talk about it now and then, but usually in passing. We hardly dwell on the fact that someone tryingto pick a career path that is not likely to be automated will have a very hard time making that choice. X-raytechnician? Outsourced already, and automation in progress. The race between automation and human work iswon by automation, and as long as we need fiat currency to pay the rent/mortgage, humans will fall out of thesystem in droves as this shift takes place…The safe zones are services that require local human effort(gardening, painting, babysitting), distant human effort (editing, coaching, coordinating), and high-levelthinking/relationship building. Everything else falls in the target-rich environment of automation.”

Mike Roberts, Internet pioneer and Hall of Fame member and longtime leader with ICANN and the InternetSociety, shares this view: “Electronic human avatars with substantial work capability are years, not decadesaway. (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CElectronic%20human%20avatars%20with%20substantial%20work%20capability%20are%20years%2C%20not%20decades%20away.%E2%80%9D%20-%20Mike%20Roberts) The situation is exacerbated by total failure of the economics community to address toany serious degree sustainability issues that are destroying the modern ‘consumerist’ model and underminingthe early 20th century notion of ‘a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.’ There is great pain down the road foreveryone as new realities are addressed. The only question is how soon.”

Robert Cannon, Internet law and policy expert, predicts, “Everything that can be automated will be automated.(https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=By%202025%20%E2%80%9CEverything%20that%20can%20be%20automated%20will%20be%20automated.%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94%40cybertelecom)Non-skilled jobs lacking in ‘human contribution’ will be replaced by automation when the economics arefavorable. At the hardware store, the guy who used to cut keys has been replaced by a robot. In the law office,the clerks who used to prepare discovery have been replaced by software. IBM Watson is replacing researchersby reading every report ever written anywhere. This begs the question: What can the human contribute? Theshort answer is that if the job is one where that question cannot be answered positively, that job is not likely toexist.”

Tom Standage, digital editor for The Economist, makes the point that the next wave of technology is likely tohave a more profound impact than those that came before it: “Previous technological revolutions happenedmuch more slowly, so people had longer to retrain, and [also] moved people from one kind of unskilled work toanother. Robots and AI threaten to make even some kinds of skilled work obsolete (e.g., legal clerks).(https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CRobots%20and%20AI%20threaten%20to%20make%20even%20some%20kinds%20of%20skilled%20work%20obsolete%20%28e.g.%2C%20legal%20clerks%29%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94%40tomstandage)This will displace people into service roles, and the income gap between skilled workers whose jobs cannot beautomated and everyone else will widen. This is a recipe for instability.”

Mark Nall, a program manager for NASA, noted, “Unlike previous disruptions such as when farmingmachinery displaced farm workers but created factory jobs making the machines, robotics and AI are different.Due to their versatility and growing capabilities, not just a few economic sectors will be affected, but wholeswaths will be. This is already being seen now in areas from robocalls to lights-out manufacturing. Economicefficiency will be the driver. The social consequence is that good-paying jobs will be increasingly scarce."(https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CThe%20social%20consequence%20is%20that%20good-paying%20jobs%20will%20be%20increasingly%20scarce.%E2%80%9D-Mark%20Nall)

Argument #2: The consequences for income inequality will be profound

For those who expect AI and robotics to significantly displace human employment, these displacements seemcertain to lead to an increase in income inequality, a continued hollowing out of the middle class, and evenriots, social unrest, and/or the creation of a permanent, unemployable “underclass”.

Justin Reich, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, said, “Robots and AI willincreasingly replace routine kinds of work—even the complex routines performed by artisans, factory workers,lawyers, and accountants. There will be a labor market in the service sector for non-routine tasks that can beperformed interchangeably by just about anyone—and these will not pay a living wage—and there will be somenew opportunities created for complex non-routine work, but the gains at this top of the labor market will notbe offset by losses in the middle and gains of terrible jobs at the bottom. I’m not sure that jobs will disappearaltogether, though that seems possible, but the jobs that are left will be lower paying and less secure than thosethat exist now. The middle is moving to the bottom.” (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CJobs%20left%20by%202025%20will%20be%20lower%20paying%2Fless%20secure%20than%20today%27s.%20The%20middle%20is%20moving%20to%20the%20bottom%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94%40bjfr)

(http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/06/future-of-jobs/pi_14-08-06_futurequotes_boyd-3/)

Stowe Boyd, lead researcher at GigaOM Research, said, “As just one aspect of the rise of robots and AI,widespread use of autonomous cars and trucks will be the immediate end of taxi drivers and truck drivers;truck driver is the number-one occupation for men in the U.S.. Just as importantly, autonomous cars willradically decrease car ownership, which will impact the automotive industry. Perhaps 70% of cars in urbanareas would go away. Autonomous robots and systems could impact up to 50% of jobs, according to recentanalysis by Frey and Osborne at Oxford, leaving only jobs that require the ‘application of heuristics’ orcreativity…An increasing proportion of the world’s population will be outside of the world of work—either livingon the dole, or benefiting from the dramatically decreased costs of goods to eke out a subsistence lifestyle. Thecentral question of 2025 will be: What are people for in a world that does not need their labor, and where only aminority are needed to guide the 'bot-based economy?” (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CWhat%20are%20people%20for%20in%20a%20world%20that%20does%20not%20need%20their%20labor%3F%E2%80%9D%20-%20%40stoweboyd%20on%20future%20of%20AI%2Frobotics)

Nilofer Merchant, author of a book on new forms of advantage, wrote, “Just today, the guy who drives theservice car I take to go to the airport [said that he] does this job because his last blue-collar job disappearedfrom automation. Driverless cars displace him. Where does he go? What does he do for society? The gapsbetween the haves and have-nots will grow larger. I’m reminded of the line from Henry Ford, who understoodhe does no good to his business if his own people can’t afford to buy the car.”

Alex Howard, a writer and editor based in Washington, D.C., said, “I expect that automation and AI will havehad a substantial impact on white-collar jobs, particularly back-office functions in clinics, in law firms, likemedical secretaries, transcriptionists, or paralegals. Governments will have to collaborate effectively withtechnology companies and academic institutions to provide massive retraining efforts over the next decade toprevent massive social disruption from these changes.”

Point of agreement: The educational system is doing a poor job of preparing the next generation ofworkers

A consistent theme among both groups is that our existing social institutions—especially the educationalsystem—are not up to the challenge of preparing workers for the technology- and robotics-centric nature ofemployment in the future.

Howard Rheingold, a pioneering Internet sociologist and self-employed writer, consultant, and educator,noted, “The jobs that the robots will leave for humans will be those that require thought and knowledge.(https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=%E2%80%9CThe%20jobs%20that%20the%20robots%20will%20leave%20for%20humans%20will%20be%20those%20that%20require%20thought%20and%20knowledge.%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94%40hrheingold)In other words, only the best-educated humans will compete with machines. And education systems in the U.S.and much of the rest of the world are still sitting students in rows and columns, teaching them to keep quietand memorize what is told to them, preparing them for life in a 20th century factory.”

Bryan Alexander, technology consultant, futurist, and senior fellow at the National Institute for Technology inLiberal Education, wrote, “The education system is not well positioned to transform itself to help shapegraduates who can ‘race against the machines.’ (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?

url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=.%40BryanAlexander%20thinks%20the%20education%20system%20is%20not%20well%20positioned%20to%20shape%20grads%20to%20%E2%80%9Crace%20against%20the%20machines%E2%80%9D)Not in time, and not at scale. Autodidacts will do well, as they always have done, but the broad masses of peopleare being prepared for the wrong economy.”

Point of agreement: The concept of “work” may change significantly in the coming decade

On a more hopeful note, a number of experts expressed a belief that the coming changes will allow us torenegotiate the existing social compact around work and employment.

Possibility #1: We will experience less drudgery and more leisure time

Hal Varian, chief economist for Google, envisions a future with fewer ‘jobs’ but a more equitable distribution oflabor and leisure time. (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=.%40halvarian%20sees%20a%20future%20w%2F%20fewer%20jobs%20due%20to%20tech%20advances%20but%20more%20equitable%20distribution%20of%20labor%2Fleisure%20time)“If ‘displace more jobs’ means ‘eliminate dull, repetitive, and unpleasant work,’ the answer would be yes. Howunhappy are you that your dishwasher has replaced washing dishes by hand, your washing machine hasdisplaced washing clothes by hand, or your vacuum cleaner has replaced hand cleaning? My guess is this ‘jobdisplacement’ has been very welcome, as will the ‘job displacement’ that will occur over the next 10 years. Thework week has fallen from 70 hours a week to about 37 hours now, and I expect that it will continue to fall. Thisis a good thing. Everyone wants more jobs and less work. Robots of various forms will result in less work, butthe conventional work week will decrease, so there will be the same number of jobs (adjusted for demographics,of course). This is what has been going on for the last 300 years so I see no reason that it will stop in thedecade.”

Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker, host of the AOL series The Future Starts Here, and founder of The Webby Awards,responded, “Robots that collaborate with humans over the cloud will be in full realization by 2025. Robots willassist humans in tasks thus allowing humans to use their intelligence in new ways, freeing us up from menialtasks.” (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://pewrsr.ch/1rN9ta8&text=Robots%20will%20free%20humans%20up%20from%20menial%20tasks%20allowing%20them%20to%20use%20their%20intelligence%20in%20new%20ways.%20-%20%40tiffanyshlain)

Francois-Dominique Armingaud, retired computer software engineer from IBM and now giving securitycourses to major engineering schools, responded, “The main purpose of progress now is to allow people tospend more life with their loved ones instead of spoiling it with overtime while others are struggling in order toaccess work.”

Possibility #2: It will free us from the industrial age notion of what a “job” is

A notable number of experts take it for granted that many of tomorrow’s jobs will be held by robots or digitalagents—and express hope that this will inspire us as a society to completely redefine our notions of work andemployment.

Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz, founders of the online community Awakening Technology, based in Portland,Oregon, wrote, “Many things need to be done to care for, teach, feed, and heal others that are difficult tomonetize. If technologies replace people in some jobs and roles, what kinds of social support or safety nets willmake it possible for them to contribute to the common good through other means? Think outside the job.”

Bob Frankston, an Internet pioneer and technology innovator whose work helped allow people to have controlof the networking (internet) within their homes, wrote, “We’ll need to evolve the concept of a job as a means ofwealth distribution as we did in response to the invention of the sewing machine displacing seamstressing aswelfare.”

Jim Hendler, an architect of the evolution of the World Wide Web and professor of computer science atRensselaer Polytechnic Institute, wrote, “The notion of work as a necessity for life cannot be sustained if thegreat bulk of manufacturing and such moves to machines—but humans will adapt by finding new models ofpayment as they did in the industrial revolution (after much upheaval).”

Tim Bray, an active participant in the IETF and technology industry veteran, wrote, “It seems inevitable to methat the proportion of the population that needs to engage in traditional full-time employment, in order to keepus fed, supplied, healthy, and safe, will decrease. I hope this leads to a humane restructuring of the generalsocial contract around employment.”

Possibility #3: We will see a return to uniquely “human” forms of production

Another group of experts anticipates that pushback against expanding automation will lead to a revolution insmall-scale, artisanal, and handmade modes of production.

Kevin Carson, a senior fellow at the Center for a Stateless Society and contributor to the P2P Foundation blog,wrote, “I believe the concept of ‘jobs’ and ‘employment’ will be far less meaningful, because the main directionof technological advance is toward cheap production tools (e.g., desktop information processing tools or open-source CNC garage machine tools) that undermine the material basis of the wage system. The real change willnot be the stereotypical model of ‘technological unemployment,’ with robots displacing workers in the factories,but increased employment in small shops, increased project-based work on the construction industry model,and increased provisioning in the informal and household economies and production for gift, sharing, andbarter.”

Tony Siesfeld, director of the Monitor Institute, wrote, “I anticipate that there will be a backlash and we’ll see acontinued growth of artisanal products and small-scale [efforts], done myself or with a small group of others,that reject robotics and digital technology.”

A network scientist for BBN Technologies wrote, “To some degree, this is already happening. In terms of thelarge-scale, mass-produced economy, the utility of low-skill human workers is rapidly diminishing, as manyblue-collar jobs (e.g., in manufacturing) and white-collar jobs (e.g., processing insurance paperwork) can behandled much more cheaply by automated systems. And we can already see some hints of reaction to this trendin the current economy: entrepreneurially-minded unemployed and underemployed people are takingadvantages of sites like Etsy and TaskRabbit to market quintessentially human skills. And in response, there isincreasing demand for ‘artisanal’ or ‘hand-crafted’ products that were made by a human. In the long run thistrend will actually push toward the re-localization and re-humanization of the economy, with the 19th- and20th-century economies of scale exploited where they make sense (cheap, identical, disposable goods), andhuman-oriented techniques (both older and newer) increasingly accounting for goods and services that arevaluable, customized, or long-lasting.”

Point of agreement: Technology is not destiny … we control the future we will inhabit

In the end, a number of these experts took pains to note that none of these potential outcomes—from the mostutopian to most dystopian—are etched in stone. Although technological advancement often seems to take on amind of its own, humans are in control of the political, social, and economic systems that will ultimatelydetermine whether the coming wave of technological change has a positive or negative impact on jobs andemployment.

Seth Finkelstein, a programmer, consultant and EFF Pioneer of the Electronic Frontier Award winner,responded, “The technodeterminist-negative view, that automation means jobs loss, end of story, versus thetechnodeterminist-positive view, that more and better jobs will result, both seem to me to make the error ofconfusing potential outcomes with inevitability. Thus, a technological advance by itself can either be positive ornegative for jobs, depending on the social structure as a whole….this is not a technological consequence; ratherit’s a political choice.”

Jason Pontin, editor in chief and publisher of the MIT Technology Review, responded, “There’s no economiclaw that says the jobs eliminated by new technologies will inevitably be replaced by new jobs in new markets…All of this is manageable by states and economies: but it will require wrestling with ideologically fraughtsolutions, such as a guaranteed minimum income, and a broadening of our social sense of what is valuablework.”